LEGO: Brick Like This! is a family board-game that combines Pictionary and LEGO building. It’s perfect to play with the family and a great way to introduce your kids to boardgames, especially if they’re a fan of LEGO. It’s also incredibly good fun for a group of adults after a few drinks.
In LEGO: Brick Like This!, players split into teams and work together to attempt to build a specific shape. Shapes are shown on cards that only one team member sees each round (the instructor). The Instructor tells their team mates which bricks to use and how to build their shape and the fastest team wins.
As you can imagine, trying to describe LEGO shapes and getting your team to grab the right bricks from the shared pool is absolute chaos, but in the best possible way. Having played with younger players and adults, LEGO: Brick Like This! is a great time and plays very differently depending on who’s playing. There are even extra rules to make it more accessible or more of a challenge.
LEGO: Brick Like This! Review
Included in the box are 48 LEGO Bricks, 92 Shape Cards, 20 Challenge Cards and an hourglass all of which offers up hours of fun. Each round, teams choose a shape card from one of the four difficulties; 5, 6, 7 or 8 studs. The higher the number of studs, the harder the shape, but also, the more points teams earn for completion. Once every team’s instructor has chosen a shape, players shout “GO!” and everyone starts trying to finish their shape as quickly as possible.
Here’s where the chaos comes into play. With multiple instructors shouting to their teams and builders grabbing frantically at the shared pool of bricks things very quickly become hectic. However, once the first team believes they’re done with their shape, the pressure gets ratcheded up a notch.
After shouting “DONE!”, the first time to be finished flips the hourglass, giving the remaining teams only 30 seconds to finish their shape. Once the time is up, it’s tools down. Teams then line up their shape with the image on the card. All shapes are conveniently 1:1, and so, if the shape fits, they score the points value of their shape. After 6 rounds, the team with the most points are the winner.
A huge part of the fun and silliness that comes from playing LEGO: Brick Like This! are the made up names everyone comes up with for each brick. My 7-year old son and I agreed on using “small slide”, “biggest slide”, “bridge” and “tunnel” as shorthand for some of the bricks. I’ve seen other players use completely different names, but as long as everyone on the team is on-board and using the same names, it’s all part of the fun.
LEGO: Brick Like This! can be played in a number of different ways to cater to the ages and skill levels of its players. The default mode sees teams competing against each other, while the kid-friendly variant has all players working together against the clock. When playing with just my son, we invented our own version where we simply saw how quickly we could build a shape and took turns instructing each other.
If you want to make things trickier, you can use one of the 20 challenge cards to increase the difficulty. These cards modify gameplay and add a challenge for extra points. Challenge cards include restrictions like building with your eyes closed, instructing without speaking, building with your fingers crossed, building with only one hand and more. With 92 shape cards and 20 Challenge cards, there is a huge amount of variety and replayability built into LEGO: Brick Like This!, which means it’s always a great option for family game nights or a bit of fun with a few adult beverages.
LEGO: Brick Like This! is a brilliant example of just how flexible and malleable the LEGO brand is. While I love the meditative and calming experience of a LEGO Build, LEGO: Brick Like This! is the complete opposite and use LEGO Bricks to craft a chaotic and hilarious game.
Kids who love LEGO (and even those who don’t) will love playing LEGO: Brick Like This! because it’s a collaborative game and by working together, teams get to have a ton of fun and build weird and interesting LEGO shapes. After playing Brick Like This!, my son has become more interested in taking time to simply build things with LEGO because he’s seen how fun it can be.
LEGO: Brick Like This! is a perfect stocking stuffer this Christmas and an ideal game to play with the family on Christmas morning.
You can find it across Australia at all good toy and board game retailers.
A copy of LEGO: Brick Like This! was provided to PowerUp! by the publisher.
